


don't waste another day

by gealbhan



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Baking, Domestic Fluff, Family Dynamics, Fluff and Humor, Gen, Post-Canon, TAZ Candlenights Exchange 2020
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-07
Updated: 2021-01-07
Packaged: 2021-03-10 17:00:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,256
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28040535
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gealbhan/pseuds/gealbhan
Summary: “You know I’m down, but what exactly are we baking? And why? Emphasis onwefor that one.”“Haven’t decided yet. Andreally?” When he continues to stare at her in blatant confusion, Lup huffs and cups her ears with her hands, tugging at her hoop earrings to produce a sound like jingling. “I don’t know, Taako, there’s something in the air lately. Something… festive.”Taako’s head tilts in the way it does when he’s halfway to understanding something. Oh well, subtlety isn’t exactly Lup’s middle name. She summons a small flame, the type that might bob atop a candle wick, and holds it out.Taako’s eyes almost bug out of his head. “Shit!” he shouts, sounding startled—even aghast—but looking delighted. “Candlenights!”
Relationships: Barry Bluejeans/Lup, Kravitz/Taako (The Adventure Zone), Lup & Taako (The Adventure Zone)
Comments: 4
Kudos: 24
Collections: The Candlenights Zone (2020 Exchange)





	don't waste another day

**Author's Note:**

  * For [heckthedamn](https://archiveofourown.org/users/heckthedamn/gifts).



> this was written for the taz candlenights exchange of 2020, as a gift for @lupsbro/@heckthedamn on tumblr! happy holidays and happy new year -- i had a lot of fun with this, so i hope it's to your liking!
> 
> title is from "making the most of the night" by crj. enjoy!

When Lup steps into the living room, she’s caught off-guard for a moment by the overpowering silence.

It isn’t quite a cause for outright concern, but it does give Lup pause. The house is not, on average, a quiet place. Whoever’s in it at any given time—be it its on-the-record occupants (herself, Taako, Barry, and Kravitz) or the traveling siblinghood of stragglers—conversation or TV or music or some combination thereof tends to flow from every room. Hell, Lup had just left a phonograph playing in her bedroom. The violins echo in the back of her ears. (Taako complains about Kravitz getting her and Barry into classical music, but more than once she’s walked downstairs in the middle of the night to see him and _his_ beau waltzing to Fantasy Tchaikovsky.)

Now that she focuses, though, it isn’t _dead_ silent (no pun intended). A distant rumbling sound, which it takes a couple of seconds for Lup to identify as purring, is punctuated by the even quieter noise of breathing.

Gliding along the carpet with as much precision and ease as if she were in her non-corporeal form, Lup approaches the back of the couch in the middle of the room and peers down. There, as anticipated, she finds her brother. He’s lying on his back, stretched out with his feet pressed to one armrest and his head pillowed on another. The early afternoon sun casts a glow onto his surprisingly open face. His eyes are closed but fluttering, breathing too steady for meditation but not slow enough for deep sleep. One hand strokes along the cat’s fur.

Lup observes for a few seconds, then slams her hands on the back of the couch to produce a loud _thump_. The effect is immediate: Taako’s ears flick all the way up, eyes shooting open; the cat on his stomach jolts upright, hisses, and flees. At that (or perhaps the claws that briefly dig into his abdomen), Taako groans in complaint.

“Sorry, babe,” Lup calls after the cat, mentally pledging to pass out handmade treats to all the little gremlins later. Taako would cluck his tongue at her for rewarding them for doing nothing, but he knows as well as she does that they’re cats and thus should be rewarded just for blessing everyone with their existence. In the meantime, though, she rounds the couch and flashes Taako the winning smile they almost share. (Hers is quirked more to the right and puts more of her teeth, sharp and some gold-capped, on display.) “Taking a little catnap?”

“I _was_.” Taako rubs his eyes, keeping one open to glare. “Don’t you have something to do for the boss? Some necromancers to round up, or, uh, some souls to collect? I’d think winter would be your busiest season.” Chipped nail polish glints in the light when he taps his chin. “Lots of miserable fucks choking on soup and freezing their lungs off and shit like that, right? And weird cultists being inspired by the season of death and gloom and whatnot.”

“What exactly do you think we _do_?” asks Lup, amused, even though he’s at least partially right. Winter is a shitstorm. “I know for a fact Krav shares work stories with you. Even though he’s technically not supposed to.”

“BF privileges.” Taako spreads his arms with a _whump_. “You’d understand if you didn’t work with yours.”

Lup shrugs, because yeah, probably. “If I didn’t work with mine,” she points out, “I’d have to stuff him in the Eternal Stockade for all his necromancy crimes.”

“And apparently you can share fun work shit with him without having to worry about ruffling Big Mama Raven’s feathers. Win-win.”

“I can’t believe you call her _Big Mama Raven_ and she still likes you,” says Lup. The Raven Queen says she doesn’t play favorites—even though she deffo does—but Taako had somehow wormed his way into her favor. That, along with Kravitz being her favorite actual subordinate, is a definite factor into the lack of enforcement of confidentiality about their jobs (and also the debatable necessity of privacy when they’re who they are and Kravitz is the damn Grim Reaper, though to a lot of Faerun he’s Taako’s trophy husband with a mysterious career no one is too sure about. Taako and Lup think this is hilarious, natch. Especially because Taako and Kravitz aren’t even married).

Taako flattens a hand to his collar. “It’s part of my charm,” he says dryly, flicking a few sparkles from his fingers to visualize that charm. “Anyway, don’t dodge my question, I rolled a nat fifteen on Insight and you know I’ve got major bonuses. What’re you doing here when you could be doing cool lich shit with the boys?”

“Right, right.” Lup flops onto the arm of the couch where Taako’s head is no longer resting and crosses her ankles with a widening smile. “I have something to work on here, actually. Got the day off from cool lich shit.”

“ _Here_ here, or just _this plane_ here?”

“Here.” She pats the back of the couch. “I need your help with it, in fact.”

A line furrows between Taako’s brows. “And what’s this nebulous _it_?”

“Baking. What else?”

“I dunno. Magic. Fashion. Effortless swag. Turning into a lich,” he adds, throwing his hands up in the air.

Lup kicks at his shoulder, missing but not too choked up about it. “C’mon, seriously.”

Taako, with a brief sigh, brings himself up to a full sitting position. He rests his weight on his hands and glances back at her. “You know I’m down, but what exactly are we baking? And why? Emphasis on _we_ for that one.”

“Haven’t decided yet. And _really_?” When he continues to stare at her in blatant confusion, Lup huffs and cups her ears with her hands, tugging at her hoop earrings to produce a sound like jingling. “I don’t know, Taako, there’s something in the air lately. Something… festive.”

Taako’s head tilts in the way it does when he’s halfway to understanding something. Oh well, subtlety isn’t exactly Lup’s middle name. She summons a small flame, the type that might bob atop a candle wick, and holds it out.

Taako’s eyes almost bug out of his head. “Shit!” he shouts, sounding startled—even aghast—but looking delighted. “Candlenights!”

“You bet your _ass_ Candlenights!” Lup shakes her head in disbelief but cackles at the scowl he throws her way. “How could you forget? Jeezy Creezy.”

“Listen! I’ve been worked to the bone lately.” Taako huffs, blowing a stray hair out of his face, and folds his arms. Lup doesn’t get the chance to ask if that was an innuendo (and say that, if so, it was a bad one) before he slides to his feet. “Why didn’t you just start off with that, huh? Taako’s all yours for the afternoon.”

Lup hops down after him. She has the decency to only further heckle him a little as they head to the kitchen to set up.

In the doorway, they pause for an instant. Then something shifts in the very air around them, and they’re in business mode quicker than Taako can snap his fingers.

Taako sweeps his hair into a braid and wraps the plait up around the back of his head. Lup tugs hers into a neat bun, brushing back flyaways. She discards her earrings and sets them in a pile on the corner of the counter, in a spot where she doesn’t _think_ they’ll fall victim to any stray flames or discarded ingredients. Oh well, she’s always got more bling tucked away if so.

Hands are washed. And washed again because you never know where you’ve been. Aprons are flung in each other’s directions and tied on with practiced ease. Recipes are reviewed and decided upon. And then, with little more than an exchange of finger guns and winks, no words necessary to convey their message, Lup and Taako get to work.

In minutes, the kitchen is alight with energy, fire (mostly non-literal), and magic (at least somewhat literal). When they’re cooking for others, Lup and Taako tend to add even more of a flair to it, make things more fun to watch than just two people mixing shit and having an egregious amount of difficulty navigating a large kitchen without colliding. Alone, though, they’ve more or less seen it all before. Magic is still a major part of the routine, natch, but that’s just the twins’ way of doing things by now. If you can’t do something dramatically, why do it at all?

It doesn’t take long to whip up a quick batch of rhubarb cookies and stuff them in the oven. As he’s setting up the timer and glancing over the already messy counters, Taako asks, “You know we’ll end up making dozens of these, right?”

Lup snorts. “Obviously. We have to feed the people of Faerun somehow. This is just a test run to see if it matches up to your famous elderflower macaroons.”

“ _Nothing_ matches up to those,” gloats Taako. “Even Lucretia says they’re, and I quote—” he gives a little flourish “—baller.”

“Sure, but they’re trite now that everyone on the damn planet got a good taste of ‘em through the Voidfish.” Long story short: A slipped hand had ended up with a macaroon between whatever those squiggly bits of jellyfish are called.

Taako scoffs. “Classic never gets old.”

“Classic _is_ old, dingus.” Lup flicks Taako in the side of the face. “They’re synonyms.”

He makes an _ehh_ sound and accompanying hand gesture. “I mean, sure. But would you call _The Fantasy Odyssey_ old?”

“Yes,” says Lup without hesitation. “Old as balls. Our cookies are going to be ten times better than some tacky old scroll about some boring human dude who’s actually kind of a douchebag.”

“Okay, true. Not even that hot either.”

Lup bobs her head in agreement, though they’re both probably biased by this point of their lives. Taako finishes fucking with the timer and sets it down on the counter with triumph. They don’t really need it, but if they get started on something else while they’re waiting (which will almost definitely happen), they’ll need the reminder.

The kitchen is quiet for a couple of beats. Taako ruins it by hopping up on the counter, cat-like in form. When Lup frowns, he shrugs and says, “Hey, it’s my damn kitchen.”

“It’s _ours_ , jackass,” Lup tells him, flicking leftover batter in his direction, but she doesn’t bother pushing him off. What Taako wants, Taako often gets. “At least wipe it down with Fantasy Lysol afterwards.”

He waves her off. “Sure, sure.”

Lup knocks her knuckles against his shoulder for good measure, then turns her attention to the counters, eyeing the delicacies spread across their kitchen. “Anyway, more productive topic: What toppings are we going for? I was thinking a mulberry spread, maybe. Krav likes that, doesn’t he?”

“Mulberry? With rhubarb? And as a topping? Ehh.” Taako gives a little shudder, then clicks his tongue. “And who the fuck knows? I don’t know _everything_ about him, you know. Taako’s no Fantasy Wikipedia stalker.”

“Hmm.” Usually, Taako’s happy to talk at length about Kravitz as long as it’s not specific details about their relationship, because that’s, in his words, nobody’s fucking business (unless he wants it to be, in which case it’s _everybody’s_ fucking business). His defensiveness now is… odd. Lup decides to prod a little deeper. “You should know what he likes and dislikes when it comes to food, though. Like, _I_ know Barry doesn’t love mulberries but does tolerate ‘em.”

“You and Barold have been together for like a million gazillion years. I think you _have_ to know all that shit by now.”

“You protest too much, methinks.” Lup climbs up on the counter beside him, prepared for and ignoring the scandalized look she earns for it. “Does Kravitz like mulberries or not?”

Taako considers for half a second. “Seriously, I don’t know. I don’t think he’s ever had them when I’ve been around, and I’ve never asked. Because I’m smart enough to not put mulberries on a rhubarb cookie.”

Another deflection. Lup shifts closer. “Did you guys have a fight or something?” She thinks she would have noticed something like that, living in the same house and all, but it’s not as if she’s around all the time.

“No, not at all. Why—?” Taako cuts himself off, tone dismissive in a pointed way that makes Lup’s attention narrow on him all the more. Careful yet absent, he tucks a loosened strand of hair back into his braid. “I’ve been thinking about us lately, actually, y’know. Like—we _have_ been together a while, yeah? Not by elf standards or anything, and definitely not as long as you and Barry, but, like—even just out of a hundred years, it’s been a long time since we met. Maggie’s getting gray hairs now.”

“Magnus has been going gray since he was twenty.” Lup rolls her eyes, but something in Taako’s voice makes her squint. “What point are you building to? You’re not going to break up with him, are you?”

Taako’s eyes widen, and he jerks his head to gape at her. “Fuck no!” he bursts instantly. “What makes you think I’d wanna do that? I’m the happiest I’ve been in—fuck, I don’t even know.” He drags a hand through his hair. Coming from anyone else, his tone might have been defensive, but the (reluctant as it seems) earnestness there is all Taako. “Nah. I was thinking more, well, the opposite.”

The room goes still. The dust mites floating through the air, visible in the brilliant glow of the mid-afternoon sun, freeze in place. The rumble of the oven fades to little more than background noise. Taako’s expression doesn’t shift, but his shoulders grow tighter. And Lup watches him, rapt, surprised not by the announcement but its timing.

Taako is, at his core, a private person. He likes to perform, to put on a show, but anything beyond the flashy persona he’d donned on _Sizzle It Up_ or as an agent of the Bureau of Balance is kept to himself, obscured by smiles and glamours. Lup has always been an exception, but even she’s not always privy to the ins and outs of his thought processes, and if she is it isn’t always because he outright tells her. And, well, this one she could have guessed from a mile away.

But, looking at Taako’s face, she doesn’t think _he_ did.

After what feels like both an hour and a nanosecond has passed, Taako laughs, the fake, strained one he never uses around Lup, and adjusts his braid. “Well, I dunno, really. Not really important right now anyway, is it? Hey, those cookies should almost be done by now, shouldn’t they?”

“Oh, _no_ ,” says Lup with unsuppressed glee, tugging him back by the wrist. “One: Not even remotely, and two: Mr. Taako-From-TV, you are _not_ deflecting your way out of this one. Let me get this straight—”

“That’s a lost cause, Lulu.”

“Let me get this gay,” deadpans Lup, to which Taako grins, though it still seems a hair too hollow, and flashes her a thumbs-up. Lup ignores his shaking hand. “You want to marry Kravitz.”

“Well…” Taako stares at some random point halfway across the room. His mouth twists back and forth, a muscle working in his jaw, and then he just sighs. “Yeah. Yeah, I guess I really fuckin’ do.”

Lup smiles at the—likely begrudging—warmth in his voice and leans forward, head perched on her hands. “How long have you been thinking about this?”

“I’m sorry,” says Taako, sounding anything but, “remind me again who didn’t tell anyone she got hitched for literally _four goddamn decades_?”

“That’s in the past, Taako! Weren’t you just talking about how we’ve been together a gazillion years?”

“Million gazillion, thanks.”

“My bad. A million gazillion years.” Lup laughs at the pleased nod Taako gives her, then nudges his shin. “Seriously, though, you’ve piqued my interest now. How long? And how seriously?”

“I mean—I haven’t gotten a ring or anything, duh.” Taako’s words are drawn out with a careful slowness, but she can read the honesty and, judging from the flush rising into his ears, embarrassment in his face. “But. I guess not that long? But also a while, just not… that _bam_ about it.” He smacks a fist against an open palm to emphasize the sound effect. “I don’t know. Not like I marked the fuckin’ calendar when I first thought about it or anything. _Hey, Taako, darling, my beloved_ ,” he says in a voice that sounds nothing like Kravitz’s, “ _what’s this ‘oh my God maybe we should get married’ you’ve written on the calendar?_ Just wouldn’t fly, y’know? No class to it at all.”

Lup ignores his half-joking tone and mulls this over. “So why haven’t you said anything? You can’t honestly think for half a second that he’d say _no_.”

Something flashes in Taako’s face, but he sniffs. “Of course not. I’m a catch, obviously, and cha’boy knows when I’ve got ‘em hook-line-and-sinker.” He splays a hand over his chest, then looks down. “But. _But_. Marriage is a big deal, yeah? I mean, dating is too, obviously, and so is living together—” he gestures at the walls “—but. I dunno. Something about it is just so _big_ and _loud_ and, like. Obviously I want to wake up next to him for the rest of my life, and I want us to have an excuse to go _all out_ on looking our damn best, and I want to keep falling in love with him because I don’t think it ever really _stopped—_ ” He cuts himself off with a frustrated sound and sags back. “And a lot of that, I already have. It’s just the _promise_ of it for however long we’ll have each other. _Death do us part_ and all.” The corner of his mouth ticks up, then curves back down. “And having to say that, and commit to it—it’s scary. Especially when I think about how long I kept myself from committing to anything. Like, what if I can’t do this either?”

Lup’s mouth opens on instinct. She stops herself, though—the tone in Taako’s voice, frustrated and a touch desperate, isn’t one that asks for condolences or even commiseration or an action plan. He just wants her to listen.

Between them, Lup’s heart has always been warmer. It burns as hot as the flames that are all but her trademark, exploding with passion and compassion and wrath and love and joy and everything in between. Beneath his shell, Taako has all of that too, but he’d been cold for so long that sometimes it’s hard for him to let it show. Weakness matters little to the two of them, who have seen each other at their worst and then some—but if he needs to let his thoughts out and not feel small and uncomfortable when it’s over, then Lup isn’t one to take that from him.

The tension that’s built up shatters when Taako reclines back with a groan. “Fuck!” he declares to the ceiling, startling Lup into laughter. “Why the hell is all of this so fucking complicated? Man, maybe I should just stop stressing over it and wait and see if he pops the question first. He did say _I love you_ first—he’s probably got a ring already.” It’s a joke (probably), but Lup wouldn’t be surprised.

“Well,” says Lup, walking the tightrope between lighthearted and serious, “you don’t know what his plans are if you don’t talk to him. If you wait for him to propose while he’s also waiting for you to propose, you won’t get anywhere fast.”

“You know from experience, huh?”

“Yeah. Which is why I’m warning you now, fucker.” Lup bumps their ankles together, which hurts her as much as it does Taako, but she slaps on a valiant smile.

Taako’s rant seems to be over, so she tugs him back up to a sitting position (sitting on the counter, she’ll tolerate, but lying down is a different story) and throws an arm around him, hauling him in for a side-hug. Taako grumbles under his breath even as he leans into the grip. It lasts almost a full minute. They sit there in a silent embrace that echoes years long since past, clinging to each other because they were all they had. Outcast, but never alone. And never again will they be.

When she drops her arm back to her side, Lup says, “We still don’t say it a lot, but… I do love you, you know, Taako. And whatever you wanna do, I’ll be here for you. And your best woman at the wedding.”

Taako gives a big, beleaguered sigh, then knocks his shoulder against hers. “I love you too, Lulu—and fucking _obviously_ you will be,” he says, and then his eyes narrow. “But if you think I’m going to flavor these cookies with motherfucking mulberries, then you’ve officially lost your goddamn mind.”

“There’s my brother,” says Lup, almost a cheer. “Obviously we won’t do that. But we will put together a separate recipe that mulberries work in.”

“You really think we have time for that?” asks Taako, squinting.

Lup scoffs. “C’mon. We’re _Taako and Lup_. Fucking of course we do.”

Taako grins, and again, they get to work.

*

By the time day has faded into evening and the twins have whipped up several batches of different cookie recipes, some conjured on the spot as easily as fucked-up tentacles, it’s hard to believe their kitchen was ever clean. From the trays and plates of cookies (both finished batches and ones they’d abandoned halfway through) to the spilled flour and chocolate and egg yolks, it looks like a very tasty tornado has rolled through the room.

Its cooks aren’t unscathed either. Taako’s apron has a permanent wet spot on the chest from how he’d kept leaning into the sink. Lup thinks she has milk in her hair. At least her earrings had been spared.

The pain in their hands and the almost overpowering smell of so many sweets had been a clear sign to give up for the night. Lup and Taako are leaning back, chatting over taste-testing their latest (and for now final) recipe, when a rift opens in the living room and a throat clears.

“Kitchen!” Lup and Taako call in unison.

“Be right there,” comes Kravitz’s voice, followed by low murmuring as he presumably talks to the cats, who’d been locked off from the kitchen and had _not_ been happy about it. Taako casts a smile toward the doorway.

After a moment, footsteps sound, and Kravitz rounds the corner. There’s a slight pause as he maneuvers his way into the kitchen without letting any of the cats in, then takes in the scene before him.

Some years ago, his first words upon entering the kitchen might have been, “What in the name of the Raven Queen _happened_?” Now, however, there’s little more than an eyebrow raise as he smiles toward Lup and moves over to Taako to peck his cheek in greeting. It takes a bit of work for this to happen, with Taako having to untangle whatever the hell has happened with his apron and Kravitz brushing a delicate hand over Taako’s cheek to remove some of the flour before pressing his lips to the clean spot.

Lup politely averts her gaze and occupies herself with attempting to clean up. Prestidigitation works well enough for small objects, but the counters are not small (nor even really an object, if you want to be nitpicky about it, which wizards tend to. They’re real dicks sometimes). Maybe with her and Taako’s combined efforts, they can clean up enough small areas to amount to one large area.

Although Taako is occupied at the moment. “Hey, you’re just in time,” Lup hears him saying as he reaches for one of the platters, surreptitiously warming it with Prestidigitation. “We’ve been cooking up a storm here, as you can see—”

“A literal storm, I take it.” Kravitz’s mouth quirks at the corners, and he nods in Lup’s direction. “Hello, by the way. You’ve been having fun, I see.” Lup can only laugh in response. “Has Barry called?”

“Yeah, an hour or two ago.” And Taako had been very displeased about having to use his _actual_ hands for one plate when Lup had walked too far away for her Mage Hand to be of any use. “He’ll be home late, right?”

Kravitz nods. “He mentioned to tell you if he hadn’t managed to get in touch. He’ll only be delayed by a couple of hours, though. I suspect you’ll still be awake then.”

“We’re all having a shitton of sugar, so yeah. And speaking of which, you should too.” Taako all but shoves the plate into his boyfriend’s face. “Here, try.”

“These are our test batches,” pipes up Lup. “Congrats, Kravitz, you get to be the lucky one to try our brand new recipe. Don’t blame us if it sucks ass.”

Kravitz laughs, and Taako’s automatic smile at the sound doesn’t escape Lup’s notice. “I’m honored—and I know you two. I’m sure it won’t,” he says, reaching for a cookie.

There’s a twitch of panic in Taako’s expression for half a second, a minute flex of his shoulder that says he wants, however briefly, to stop and triple-check the cookies for any side effects, no matter how many times he’d looked over the ingredients while preparing. But he stops himself, smile softening with forced trust. Lup nudges his shoulder in support as Kravitz bites down.

His pleased sound is immediate, and it makes Taako’s smile widen back into a grin. Kravitz has had plenty of their cooking before, especially Taako’s, but his excitement never quite fades.

Lup’s favorite part of cooking has always been seeing other people’s faces when they eat the shit she’s made. Genuine joy is so natural to feel over food, and a lot of people don’t pay too much attention to it, but chefs, Lup knows, do. She does. And he can play aloof all he wants, but Taako does, too—the sheer opposite reaction was what had almost gotten him to stop.

So Kravitz’s smile is just as infectious to her as it is to Taako. She rests her cheek against her hand as she watches him devour the cookie in a few simple bites, gushing afterward about how sweet and well-crafted it had been. Taako all but glows.

Lup knows the technical details of her food by heart. By the time she puts something on a plate, she’s probably run over everything bad or wonky about it in her mind ten times. Taako does the same thing, and might even be worse about it now, making sure nothing was slipped in by accident or without his knowledge. It’s nice to see positive reactions to homemade food—it’s even nicer to hear a normal person, uninvolved in the process, remind you what’s good about it instead of repeating the same flaws you’ve been fixated on for half a damn hour.

As she watches, something occurs to Lup. A sharper grin splits across her face, and when Taako glances her way she knows he can tell she’s up to something.

“Hey, Taako,” she calls, gesturing him over. Taako gives Kravitz a half-apologetic side glance before walking over, head tilted in question. Before he can ask what was so important that she couldn’t scream it across the room, Lup leans in to whisper, “You remember those, uh, fuck, what the hell were they called—” she snaps her fingers a few times until she remembers, Taako watching her with a _what the fuck are you on about_ expression “—shit, right, king cakes!” It’s difficult to not exclaim that, especially since she’s already smiling at Kravitz snagging another cookie in their absence, but she manages. “You remember those from that one cycle? The dudes with the weird little trinkets in ‘em?”

“Yeees? Why—no,” says Taako, horror taking over. If she didn’t already know twin telepathy was bullshit (knowing each other since the literal womb tends to breed familiarity), Lup might have thought he’d plucked her thought straight from her brain. “Do _not_ say what you’re about to say.”

“You could pop the question by baking a ring into one of these next batches of cookies.”

Taako’s grimace is instant. He shoves her back, only causing Lup’s laughter to dissolve into a wheezing cackle, and huffs all while Kravitz glances over in bemusement. “Fuck _off_!” says Taako, but he’s giggling now too, a hand held over his mouth to hide it. “No way in hell am I doing that. Impractical, tacky, _and_ dangerous.”

“The danger is half the fun!” Lup shakes her head at Kravitz, even though he doesn’t know what they’re talking about. Because he’s nice, he shakes his head back, albeit with a confused—and somewhat concerned—smile. When she gets a hold of herself, she sighs and lowers her voice again. “Fine, but I meant it earlier. You’d better tell me when you _do_ decide on something.”

“You’ll be the last person to know just for that,” says Taako decisively.

Lup lets him have the lie. She doesn’t want a say in everything—it’s Taako’s life, and she’s got nothing to live vicariously through—but she’d at least like to stay updated. Her brother getting married is a big deal, after all. Especially when that brother is Taako “everyone else is dust, hasn’t had a serious boyfriend or really _any_ boyfriends or even just dates since he was a wee elf” From TV.

She gives Kravitz a _good luck_ smile as Taako snatches up a different plate of cookies, the ones with mulberries in them. Kravitz returns it, though he doesn’t seem to intuit her meaning, or at least he’s distracted by Taako walking back over to him.

“Try one of these, too.” Taako sets the plate down and holds a cookie up with a reflexive Mage Hand. “They’ve got mulberries in ‘em. Lup, the madwoman—” he jerks a thumb over his shoulder in her direction “—tried to convince me to flavor the rhubarb batch with mulberries, but I talked her into making a whole new set.”

“Bullshit you did,” calls Lup, getting flipped off in retaliation. Lup raises _two_ middle fingers, though she’s laughing again. Taako has his Mage Hand flip her off too.

Kravitz’s eyes, meanwhile, light up. “I love mulberries,” he says, smiling at Taako in a way that implies he loves something else too.

It’s a good thing Taako isn’t holding anything anymore and Kravitz already took the cookie, because his Mage Hand, middle finger and all, dissipates. Lup sticks her tongue out, but she’s grinning too hard to make it really work as Kravitz bites down.

Soon, they’ll make more sweets—more than just cookies, a whole mess of pastries and some healthier appetizers too—and pass them around to their friends. Soon, they’ll laugh and have cheer and be merry and all that jazz with all their family from the IPRE. Soon, maybe, there will be two married couples in this household, and Lup can pay Taako back for all the times he’s harassed her and Barry over the years (and believe her, she has all of eternity to carry out her vengeance).

But right here, right now, they have almost everything they need.

**Author's Note:**

> thanks so much for reading! if you have time to spare, comments and kudos are always appreciated. i also encourage you to donate to a person or organization in need if you have the time and money; the holiday season is over by now, but there's no reason to put an end to compassion and generosity.
> 
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